In 2005, David Byrne’s globe-trotting label Luaka Bop—after investigating the sounds of Brazil, Cuba, and the like—released World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's A Real Thing - The Funky Fuzzy Sounds Of West Africa. Along with the likes of the breathtaking É**thiopiques series and Strut’s relentlessly funky Nigeria 70 set from 2001, the compilation helped spur a revival in African music from the continent’s “Golden Age,” that time in the 1960s and 70s when European imperialism was for the most part eradicated, artists and culture flourished, and before many of these nations’ leaders turned despotic. That renaissance has continued on into the present moment, from the work of imprints like Analog Africa, Soundway, and Awesome Tapes from Africa (to name just a few of many active reissue labels), even as Africa’s embarrassment of riches has turned into a glut of sorts, a decidedly First World problem to have.
In those intervening years, Luaka Bop tried with little success to track down William Onyeabor, whose “Better Change Your Mind” appeared on both their comp and the Nigeria 70 set. Little info could be found about the man, though the reports varied wildly: he studied cinematography in Russia, he self-financed his own movie, he was a titan of industry in his native Nigeria with a flour mill, he had business interests in Sweden. About the only thing for certain was that Onyeabor self-released eight albums from 1977-1985 at an annual report clip, before disavowing music for Christianity. Since then, Onyeabor’s music has been bootlegged while original copies can go for upwards of $500 online.
Previous decades have led to re-appraisals of the likes of King Sunny Ade, Ali Farka Touré, Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keita, and Fela Kuti, and Luaka Bop’s handy new set Who is William Onyeabor? (the first legitimate reissue of his music) posits the man for a 21st century audience, where his sonic sensibilities seem best suited. While those aforementioned African icons gained renown on the world music circuit for their guitar work, their distinct voices, their rhythmic innovations, Onyeabor favored an instrument rarely heard from the African Diaspora, the analog synthesizer.
An array of keyboards can be seen on the cover of Onyeabor’s final album Anything You Sow and across the man's discography, they evolve from serving as accompaniment to becoming the primary instrument. “Something You Will Never Forget” features a crisp backbeat, Afrobeat horn skronk, and Onyeabor’s organ in roller rink mode, the most conventional song on the set. But on opener “Body and Soul” (a longtime dancefloor staple) Onyeabor tickles the keys then warps them until they sound like an inter-dimensional portal in the midst of the song’s slinking groove. It happens again five minutes into his biggest “hit,” “Atomic Bomb” a heavily wah-wah’d keyboard doing its best Bernie Worrell when-the-Mothership-lands impression.
All but one of the comp’s nine tracks comes in under six minutes (with three topping the 10-minute mark), and most of the songs are structured similarly, at times making the set feel same-y. A steady, boxy drum rhythm (some utilizing drum machine), smatterings of guitar, a bevy of female back-up singers doing call and responses with Onyeabor’s naïf yet endearing English lyrics, but central to each track is Onyeabor’s synth work. The closest comparison to this set might be that of Indian guitarist-turned synth enthusiast Charanjit Singh’s 1982 album *Synthesizing: *Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, which no doubt sounded like a rinky-dink curio during its time, but in hindsight was revealed to have anticipated acid and techno by a number of years so that by the time of its reissue it sounded downright revelatory to 21st century listeners. Similarly, Onyeabor’s strange use of the synthesizer as embellishment presages that of any number of outsider electronic music producers by three decades. It’s little wonder that the likes of Four Tet, James Holden, Caribou and more have already been buzzing with their accolades for the man and the weird funk of “Fantastic Man” could easily be mistaken for a modern Dam-Funk track.
Whereas Sunny Ade’s singular guitar tone could be as mighty and rippling as a river and Fela Kuti and Tony Allen’s Afrobeat was a force of nature, Onyeabor’s music often times sounds warbling and flimsy, economical and tinny. Some of this might come from the set drawing on vinyl sources rather than master tapes, but knowing of the man’s imminent Christian conversion, it’s not a stretch to see parallels between Onyeabor’s organ tone and those of private-pressed religious records. Onyeabor’s sound is as homemade and insular as anything on last year’s Personal Space compilation, as strange and extraterrestrial as that of Sun Ra. Who is William Onyeabor? doesn't provide any answers its own posited question, but the mystery and wonder of the man’s music remains intact.
